In May 2014, the Government announced the end of the Economic and Financial Assistance Programme - PAEF (agreed with the EU and the IMF in May 2011), without resorting to additional external financial assistance thus gaining access to international debt markets.

After three years of the Programme, the Portuguese economy has made significant progresses in the correction of a number of macroeconomic imbalances, having implemented measures of a structural character in several areas. According to the Banco de Portugal, the PAEF objectives were globally met in certain aspects of the Portuguese economy, such as - the net financing capacity in relation to the exterior, the primary structural adjustment (around 8% during the 2010-2014 period) in accordance with the IMF, ongoing budget consolidation, as well as the transfer of resources from the non-tradable sector to tradable - were several of the favourable elements that contributed to the process for sustainable growth.

In 2015, according to the INE (National Statistics Office), the Portuguese economy registered an increase of 1.5% in volume, year on year (after +0.9% in 2014 and -1.1% in 2013). This recovery was due to the positive performance of domestic demand (+2.5% in relation to 2014), reflected in the increase of private consumption (+2.6%) and an increase in public consumption (+0.6% in relation to the previous year, after various years of successive falls). Also the gross fixed capital formation increased in 2015 (+4.1%).

According to the same source, the increase of real export growth in goods and services was 5.2% during the last year (with the goods sector increasing 5.9% and services 3.1%), while imports increased 7.6%. The combined current and capital account balance in 2015 was positive, achieving 1.7% of GDP.
In the 2nd quarter 2016, according to INE, GDP registered an increase of 0.9% in volume, year on year. Net external demand made a slightly positive contribution, making the deceleration of imports of goods and services more significant than that verified in exports.

The last projections from the Banco de Portugal (BdP) for the period 2016-20171 point to a continued gradual recuperation of the Portuguese economy, indicating an increase of GDP of 1.3% and 1.6% respectively (the forecast of the European Commission2 for Portugal and for the Euro Area is 1.5% and 1.6%
in 2016; respectively).